Member Spotlight: Michael R. Solomon

TAA member Michael R. Solomon is a Professor of Marketing in the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University and is a textbook and academic author in the marketing discipline.

He has published approximately 30 textbooks (including international adaptations) and over 60 journal articles. His most recent textbook is Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and Being 12th ed., published by Pearson Education.

What are you currently working on?
I’m in the process of self-publishing a trade book, entitled “Marketers, Tear Down These Walls! Liberating the Postmodern Consumer.” This has been a real learning experience that’s helped me to become aware of the many exciting (and perplexing) options to legacy publishing that are available to authors.

Share a recent accomplishment.
I was thrilled to receive a TAA Textbook Excellence Award this year for our title on Social Media Marketing, published by SAGE.

What is your favorite textbook writing tip or strategy?Be compulsive. A textbook project is very complicated and it requires a lot of discipline because deadlines that seemed quite far off become imminent much sooner than you think. Plan ahead and anticipate what you will need well in advance, especially if you will be incorporating content from other authors. For example, in my Principles of Marketing text I include profiles/mini-cases that are written by senior executives (and then edited by me). Most of them require several months of prodding to turn around what I need — they are even worse than my academic colleagues!

What is your best TAA experience so far?
I have enjoyed several of the webinars that keep me up-to-date on pertinent issues I won’t learn about via my other academic activities.